


An Audience

by trashbinofdestiny



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: King!Noctis AU, M/M, Scourge-infected Noctis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 20:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashbinofdestiny/pseuds/trashbinofdestiny
Summary: Noctis is crowned king at 19, when the strain of upholding the magical wall becomes too much for his father. After his coronation, Noctis returns to the throne room to hold audience with the Accursed, who may share more in common with Noct than he'd like to believe.For Ardynoct week, day 5: Chained/Kneeling before the king





	An Audience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamingcicadas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingcicadas/gifts).



> This is for dreamingcicadas, who is an absolute dear. I know you like a slightly daemonic Noctis, so I wanted to write a little scene where Noct being infected by the Scourge/no longer fully human is implied, but hasn't started taking shape yet.

Noctis Lucis Caelum was crowned at nineteen, just as the leaves were starting to bud in the outskirts of the city, and the wind that rushed over the desert beyond settled into the clammy warmth of spring. The strain of maintaining the wall of Lucis was too much for his father to bear, and the ring of the Lucii could not be passed on to a prince without risk. As it was, when Noctis, standing before the throne with the eyes of Lucis trained on him from every television and cellphone in the country, slipped on the ring at last, his face contorted for one brief, terrible moment in a grimace of pain. Then it was gone, replaced by a bland, smiling mask, and Noctis ascended the throne and claimed his birthright. 

Later, when he was alone in his new bedroom, Noctis would curl around his arm, gasping and hissing at the fire that raced through his veins. It was a reminder, a sign of the truth that Noct had tried to avoid for years: That no matter how hard he tried, no matter how willing he was to shoulder this burden, he would never be enough. The old kings of Lucis whose souls powered the magic of the ring had judged him, and found him barely worthy of his life. 

The minutes before midnight passed too slowly. Noct straightened, staggered to his bathroom to douse his arm under the tap, and stood there until he heard the knock on his door.

Everyone in Lucis had seen his coronation, but there was another ceremony Noctis had to follow. He dried himself off, shook out his hand, and followed the stone-faced attendant outside his door to the throne room. Then the attendant left him, and Noctis opened the doors to the throne room on his own. 

The room was lit only by the moon shining through the high windows. When Noctis passed the dais facing the throne, he heard the clink of a chain scraping against the stone floor.

He didn’t turn to look.

The steps to the throne felt impossibly high. He almost stopped, but the pain in his arm throbbed like an open wound, and he kept going, dragging his feet over polished marble. When he sat on the throne for the second time that day, he finally looked down on the figure kneeling on the dais.

He looked like an older man, possibly in his forties, with hair the color of dark wine and a face made angular by the harsh moonlight. He wore a high-collared shirt and black pants, and chains linked his hands, his legs, his neck, all leading at last to a hook at the base of the dais. When he lifted his head, his chains rattled.

“Your Majesty,” he said. 

“Your Majesty,” said Noctis. 

The man laughed. 

It had been nearly two thousand years since the reign of the Accursed King Ardyn Lucis Caelum had been cut short by his son, and Ardyn was stripped of his title, bound by magic, and transported to what would one day become Insomnia. He bore the Starscourge in his veins, and as such would never truly die—but neither could he be allowed to walk free. And so he remained, deep in the lower levels of the Citadel, brought out only to remind new kings of their duty to end the Scourge.

Noctis massaged his stinging hand, and the old king smiled.

“A little singed, Your Majesty?” he asked. The shadows in his eyes were impossibly dark. Noct leaned forward on his elbows, and the fire in his arm flared, a warning, as the smallest speck of gold glinted below Ardyn’s long bangs. 

“Ah.” Ardyn’s voice was soft. “Your Majesty, when was the last time you saw a daemon?”

“Before you, you mean?” Noct asked. Ardyn only smiled. “I was… Five. Maybe six.”

It had taken months to wake him after the attack. He’d dreamt in fits and starts; Strange, unsettling dreams, full of blood and stone and the faintest cry of a distant animal. He’d run towards it, desperate in the dark, but no matter where he turned, it was always just out of reach. In the end, Noctis had been woken by the Oracle in Tenebrae, and he’d never been able to sleep through the night the same way again. 

Ardyn made a small movement with his chin, so sharp and short it hardly seemed human. It was a command, a summons, and it wasn’t until Noctis was halfway off the throne when he realized that something in _him_ had answered. He stopped, frozen halfway off the throne, and Ardyn’s laugh echoed off the empty walls.

“In your own time, Your Majesty,” he said, and Noctis clenched the hand that bore the ring. “When you’re ready, when your gods have failed you, then you may come to me. After all…”

Chains rattled on the stone, and Noctis winced.

“It’s only a matter of time.”


End file.
